2nd Purdue Charter High School Approved By Indy Charter Board

Three new charter schools are on course to open in the city next summer.

One of those will be the second Purdue Polytechnic high school. The university's first engineering and science-focused high school just completed its inaugural year downtown.

Monday night the Indianapolis Mayor’s Charter School Board unanimously approved the second Purdue High School. It also approved the replication of the Paramount School of Learning and the first charter for the new Invent Learning Hub school.

Keeanna Warren will be the principal of the new Purdue school. She says a survey overseen by the school found northside families want more options.

"They felt like, by the time they got to high school that they had no choice but to leave Center Township," Warren says. "So we are interested in really retaining a lot of those students so they don’t feel like they need to go off to the suburbs to get a high- quality education"

The location for the new Purdue High School is undecided but school leaders say they are interested in the recently closed Broad Ripple High School. 

Indianapolis Public School leaders have said they want to sell the building for at least $6 million to $8 million. But state lawmakers have yet to change a rule that blocks traditional public school corporations from selling empty buildings without first allow charter schools the option to buy or lease them.